As a photographer and photojournalist Ernst Haas was influential for his innovations in color photography. After he attended medical school in Austria in 1947, Haas left to become a staff photographer for the magazine Heute. His photo essay for the magazine on prisoners of war coming home to Vienna won him acclaim and Robert Capa asked him to join Magnum Photos. Haas and Werner Bischof were the first photographers invited to join Magnum by the founders Capa, David "Chim" Seymour, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and Bill Vandivert. He received the Hasselblad Award in 1986.